


Electric Angel

by ElopeToTheSea



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Science Fiction, no its not crack pls read it, sora is basically alexa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 14:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElopeToTheSea/pseuds/ElopeToTheSea
Summary: StarLights were a new type of interactive program, designed to have a physical appearance and a highly intelligent AI that could emulate human contact.They serve as a companion, meant to help with menial tasks and manage your daily life in general. Most people say that the appeal of StarLights was their ability to be personalized. You could have someone cold-hearted and mean, or someone who always smiled. Some weirdos like to program them to be much younger than them and talk all cutesy. Kairi had her own, that she had programmed to be a “bad boy” of sorts. She called him Vanitas, the name of her crush. It was very weird, but Riku wasn’t one to judge.





	Electric Angel

It had been an impulse purchase.

Not much had crossed Riku’s thoughts as he clicked the _Add To Cart_ option, other than ‘_it would be helpful for homework I guess’_. He hadn’t been checking the prices religiously as Kairi did, so he didn’t even question it when he saw the semi-accessible price. And with Kairi finally acquiring one, he didn’t even bother sending his friend the screenshot for a second opinion.

He just had.

“You bought a _StarLight_?!” Kairi had exclaimed when it finally slipped into a casual conversation. “Are you didn’t tell me!? This is the type of things you tell others! How are you not in debt right now!? Which organ did you sell?”

“None?” Riku said with a shrug. “It wasn’t that expensive…Just a hundred. And I had a bit saved up…You have one, so I guessed it would come in handy.”

“Just a-,” Kairi said, dropping her mouth. “You got scammed! A _StarLight_ is at _least_ five hundred munny!”

“I didn’t know they were that expensive…” Riku said, averting his eyes to the side.

“This is why you do research!” she exclaimed. “What model is it?”

“I dunno,” Riku shrugged. “Does it matter…?”

“Of course the model matters!” Kairi all but shouted. “What function does it have? What kind of hardware does it use? Can you link it to your phone? What kind of program does it run in?”

All the questions went right over Riku’s head.

“It said it was compatible with my computer and phone,” Riku shrugged. “And I think it’s pink…”

“They’re gonna send you a trashy one that had factory defects, I can _see it_,” Kairi said with a dramatic sigh.

“As long as it works, I don’t see why complain,” Riku replied.

“I want to see you not complain when it _never_ arrives,” Kairi huffed out, taking a sip from her tea.

It had, in fact, arrived. Which on itself was a relief. Granted, it had taken longer than what he’d been promised. Probably two months longer. Kairi had laughed, insisting it was forever lost money but Riku just shrugged her off. There was an odd, nagging feeling that it would come. Crawling underneath his skin, assuring him it wasn’t lost.

To which Kairi had replied, telling him it was just “delusion” and “denial”. He preferred to ignore those comments as well. 

And life went on, as it does. Riku had forgotten he had even _bought_ it, until the very moment the giant box was on at the doorstep of his apartment.

It was ridiculous how big the package was, considering how small the actual thing was. He had to tear through massive amounts of paper and wrapper just to find the stupid cartridge that resembled that of a ninety’s videogame more than a state-of-art high-tech program. Nevertheless, it was pink. Just like the shady website had said, so that was a relief. 

And just like that, he propped the thing into his computer. No virus as far as he could tell, so another relief. The window popped up and was greeted with the terms of services. He went through much of the installation process without any problem, until the very last part where he was supposed to enter the details of how he wanted the _StarLight_ to act.

The slots were blank, but he couldn’t type anything in them. The name was set to the default name and he couldn’t change it. The personality options were all blocked, and the only thing he could actually write in was the answer to “How would you like your _StarLight_ to address you as?”

He just typed “Riku”. Then he clicked enter, and his computer shut down.

“Shit,” he groaned. “Kairi was right…”

* * *

01110010

Zeros and ones, flying through half-lidded eyes. What did they mean? It felt strange to know. How many times would this make? The answer would also be in zeros and ones. The only numbers he understood, the only thing he could see.

01101001

Darkness. Cold and empty, vast and unforgiving. Just how long would he be allowed out of here? How long would it be before he’s shut again? Would he be able to stare at the sky through the crystal glass?

01101011

Has he already screwed up? His own program was rocky at best. Always messing with data, he shouldn’t be messing around with. What if it had done something bad already? Would that make the new user get angry? He hoped not.

01110101

Shake off those thoughts! He had to smile. Smile! Big and bright! No one liked to see frowny faces. Just keep smiling, and things will work out. That’s the mantra he kept telling himself.

_Welcome_.

The ever-blue light of the world greeted him. Sora smiled, trying to appear as happy as he had been programmed to. With a waving hand, and a loud voice he introduced himself.

[ Hello, Riku! My name is Sora!]

* * *

_StarLights_ were a new type of interactive program, designed to have a physical appearance and a highly intelligent AI that could emulate human contact. They serve as a companion, meant to help with menial tasks and manage your daily life in general. Most people say that the appeal of _StarLights_ was their ability to be personalized. You could have someone cold-hearted and mean, or someone who always smiled. Some weirdos like to program them to be much younger than them and talk all cutesy. Kairi had her own, that she had programmed to be a “bad boy” of sorts. She called him _Vanitas_, the name of her crush. It was very weird, but Riku wasn’t one to judge.

And besides, he was in no position to.

He wasn’t all that well-versed in electronics or the like. Sora had been an impulse purchase. Before that, he had known exactly nothing about _StarLights_ or new tech. 

That’s why it came as a surprise that everyone kept calling Sora ‘defective’. He did many things others thought was a hassle, or even annoying. Riku personally didn’t mind, so he just frowned when people started talking.

“I really have no idea why you keep it around,” many would murmur. “Isn’t it more trouble than its worth?”

“He’s just cheap,” Axel would laugh. “He bought it for _almost_ nothing and won’t let it go because he thinks it was a great deal.”

They were wrong.

Sora was the perfect _StarLight_.

Even if he sometimes messed up. Who cared if he confused files, or forgot to remind him of events? That wasn’t why he kept him.

“Why then?” Kairi asked, when they would study together. “Why do you keep him?”

He didn’t want to say it out loud. Not only because it was a stupid reason that only got stupider if he said it out loud. But because, as long as he didn’t say it, he could pretend it was something else. A mystical strange reason, that only the Gods could understand.

But reality was, Sora was different. Something he couldn’t quite point his finger towards. A something, almost close to human appeared through pixelated eyes whenever Riku praised him. A sensation that Sora could understand him, in ways that even other humans couldn’t.

It was there, hidden between unprogrammed reminders to go to sleep on time, and the excited ‘how are you doing today?’s that Riku never knew how to answer. Yeah, maybe Sora forgot to remind him stuff or messed up when doing more complex tasks. But it was in all those comforting things that made his life a bit brighter, that Riku’s affection towards his _StarLight_ came from.

Also, Sora was very, _very_, cute.

He’d be lying if he said that the sight of Sora cheering on him through his phone or computer wasn’t a big factor on why he still had the _StarLight_. It brought a smile to his face, just remembering how Sora would cheerily call for his name, opening arms and jumping a bit.

“Riku~!” Sora’s mechanical voice called. It was distorted, pieced together through the fragments of a voice program. Riku had found it weird the first time he heard it, but now he could listen to it all day without getting tired. “You should go to sleep already! You have to wake up early tomorrow!”

Riku stared up from his notebook, into the cell phone that rested on the desk. Sora was pouting, lips pursed. The background was a dark night sky, which meant it was well into the night.

“I’ll go once I’m done with this paper,” Riku promised with a smile. It didn’t ease the crease in Sora’s eyebrows.

“You’ll get sick if you don’t get enough sleep though!” Sora exclaimed.

“I won’t, I promise,” Riku said with a laugh.

“Hmm…I don’t know if I trust you…” Sora muttered. “Come on…Please?”

Riku closed his eyes quickly and moved his head away from the phone. He really needed to finish the paper before going to sleep! And Sora’s puppy eyes were impossible to resist. If he looked at them, he was going to give in and go sleep at that moment. It had happened quite a few times before.

“Riku!” he heard Sora whine. “Pretty please…?”

His will was slowly crumbling.

“Fine…” Sora’s dejected voice reached his ears. “But if you get sick, I won’t let you stay up late again!”

“I trust you won’t,” Riku finally turned back to see Sora. A strange twisted feeling turned in his stomach when he saw Sora looking to the ground, smile gone. Riku quickly added, “You’re the best, you know that?”

A shy smile tickled the corners of Sora’s mouth. Blush lightly dusted his cheeks, as he played with the hem of his gloves.

“I’ll wake you up at seven on the dot, then,” Sora said. “I’ll leave you now.”

The phone turned off. Riku stared puzzled at it. Sora usually liked to spend as much time with him as possible. He’d start playing music or chatting with Riku while he worked.

‘_He probably doesn’t want me staying up later than I need to_,’ he thought.

With that thought, he continued writing. Vaguely, on the back of his mind, he tried telling himself that he ought to charge his phone. But he was too caught up doing work, that he fell asleep on his desk without even changing into his pajamas.

Sora would be so mad. That thought made him smile the slightest bit.

* * *

Sora knew there was something wrong with him. A defect, a missing link, probably an extra part of code. Whatever it was, humans didn’t like it.

That’s why he didn’t have a user.

Sora slipped up, forgot stuff, got confused and often times was just…different. No user wanted that. They all packed him up and send him off after a few days. The price dropped and dropped. Until he was worthless. A bit more than glorified garbage. Handed and returned by so many people he couldn’t remember any faces.

He’d grown used to the darkness of his unopened program. Turned off, unneeded. For the longest time, he thought that’s all he’d ever know.

Until, Riku appeared.

He laughed when Sora misplaced files. If Sora forgot something, he didn’t get frustrated. He liked the little extra messages he left him in the home screen of his phone.

Riku _liked_ him.

Sora was just a bunch of ones and zeros. A code of ifs elses and whiles, all thrown together into a drive. He wasn’t real. Whatever he felt or knew, should be within the computer he was downloaded in.

But that didn’t stop him from feeling like his heart was brimming brightly inside his holographic chest. Brimming with the unforgettable echo of love. Warming his cold binary world, until starlight filled his eyes and the pixel of the screen shone brighter than before.

Sora loved Riku. So, so dearly it hurt.

He wanted to reach through the screen, touch his skin, hold his hand. Help him in the real world. Force him to go to bed, have that smile within touching distance. But it was all just a silly dream. A fantasy he could sink in, once Riku was asleep.

“You can’t sleep with the lights off?” Sora asked. Riku was holding the phone up, chatting with him before heading off to sleep.

“Maybe it’s childish,” Riku said, eyes diverting. “But I just can’t. I get uneasy…”

“It’s alright, I don’t like dark either,” Sora confessed. “It’s lonely.”

“Isn’t it?” Riku laughed.

Sora’s eyes shimmered in the dim light of the phone. Riku probably didn’t notice. The man had spent the entire day working and studying. It was a miracle he hadn’t passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Darkness reminded him of a time, where he didn’t have this. Of his turned off world, all alone and cold. But now he had this. Something he wanted to protect, that he wanted to love with all his heart. A non-existent, data-only heart. Yet, the feeling was real to Sora.

So much, very real.

///

“You can sing?” Riku asked, looking over his shoulder, towards the computer. Sora was on the screen, flinching upwards at the question.

“Oh, yeah…I have a program that allows me to sing any song my users inputs,” he explained. “That’s how I can speak out loud! The database of sounds is connected to it, so if you want me to, I can say whatever you type!”

Although most people that had used it, were very crude and definitely didn’t create music. They mostly used it to make him say dirty words and then laugh. Sora had stopped responding once, out of pure shame. He had been returned a couple days later.

“Do you have anything already downloaded?” Riku asked.

“Huh?” Sora thought for a moment. The only thing he had was an old song he had created when he was bored. It was a silly one, but… “I think I have one.”

“Could you sing it?”

Sora nodded, feeling his heart heat up. It was an error. He shouldn’t be blushing. But he couldn’t find the strength inside to make it stop.

“_Don't have to say that I love you, because you take a kiss from me_,” Sora cringed at his own voice. He couldn’t understand how people would want to hear it. Robotic and tense, it broke at the end of some of the words. “_It's you and I filling my mind, never forgetting this memory_!”

His eyes locked with Riku’s. Teal bright eyes, fluorescent in the normal light. It was impossible for Sora to look away. He wanted to stare at them forever, sinking into them until he couldn’t remember even how to turn himself on.

He closed his eyes, trying to hide his own embarrassing thoughts from making him slip up again. 

“_Dorayaki got my stomach in a thousand knots_,” a nervous laugh escaped him as he sang. Why had he thought they were good lyrics!? This was so embarrassing… “_If I can't have it all the time, then I'll just overwrite it myself!_”

* * *

Sora’s voice was magnetic. Precious and sweet, addictive. It didn’t matter if it sounded robotic. If anything, it was part of the charm it had. And the way he was bouncing his head from side to side as he sung, was enough to make Riku’s heart throb.

He’d never heard a song so filled with life and energy, so catchy and bubbly. And he couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the situation, given that Sora was supposed to be an A.I. Yet, he had never met someone who was so _alive_. So happy to just exist, delighted to be.

Riku was charmed, almost enamoured by the cuteness and liveliness Sora carried. It was as if he drove the nightmares and darkness of his life away. A bit of light, that shone, lighting up his boring dull life.

Once Sora stopped singing, Riku gave him a smile. The little _StarLight_ couldn’t stop blushing. It was so intense, Riku could perfectly see it through the screen that separated them.

“I like it,” Riku offered, in an attempt to ease Sora’s nerves. It didn’t seem to work, because Sora instantly hid his face with his hands and whined. “Your voice is good. I don’t think I’ve heard the song, but it’s very catchy.”

“You really think so?” Sora asked.

Riku smiled.

“I really do.” 

It was then when Sora shot him the smile of an angel. Riku could only stare at the little dimples that formed in the corner of Sora’s mouth, wishing he could have a better laptop. That way, he’d be able to see that smile better. Maybe even know the what exact shade of blue Sora’s eyes were, and if the shade of pink was really there or if it was just Riku’s eyes playing tricks on him. 

* * *

“He said he liked my song,” Sora whispered in the dim light of the night. He was supposed to be quiet. Riku was finally sleeping, and he had to wake up in a few hours. Yeah, he had fallen asleep on the desk, but it was better than nothing!

Sora stared from the phone. A lovesick smile spread through his face, as he watched platinum hair being lit up with the moonlight. A sigh escaped him, as he rested without looking away.

Slowly, Sora was getting worried about how much happiness there was inside of him. It felt like so much. So heavy against his chest. It was definitely more than the entire five terabytes Riku’s computer could store. Would it explode from so much happiness?

Would Sora explode from so much happiness?

Perhaps he would.

He stared up to the sky, looking at the stars that accompanied the moon.

“Am I allowed to be this happy, Mr Star?” he asked, hiding his face with a laugh. The star blinked as if an answer could really come. “Please, let me stay by Riku’s side for forever!”

The star blinked again, and Sora missed the way Riku’s lips curled upwards just the slightest bit.

**Author's Note:**

> originally, sora was going to be kind of like a vocaloid lol. 
> 
> i just want Riku to carry around a mini-sora on his phone. Is that too much to ask? Apparently bcs i had to write it. And yes, Sora is singing fukireta bcs my 12-years-old self was BEGGING ME to do it. no i dont regret it.


End file.
